Obtaining insurance has virtually always required obtaining a quote from an insurance agent on a particular person, item or property, including such things as health and long term disability for persons, personal property including vehicles and possessions, or real property, (persons, items and/or property on which insurance coverage is sought/obtained is hereinafter referred to as “object”). A unique person or entity with an insurable interest in the object (“owner”) seeking insurance provides the agent with specific information related to an individual object required for writing bindable insurance coverage (“object information”) for the individual object. The agent contacts one or more insurance companies or insurers (“carriers”) with the object Information and provides one or more quotes to the owner. If the owner wishes to bind coverage on the object, it accepts coverage and pays the required premiums on a quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis.
When a number of objects are to be covered, the owner must prepare and provide the object information for each of the objects to the carrier for quotes. If coverage is accepted and the carrier is bound, the owner keeps internal records of the cost of the insurance for each of the individual objects and pays the premiums.
As such, the method currently in use is not significantly different when the owner seeks to obtain coverage on a plurality of objects than when the owner seeks to obtain coverage on a single object, other than the fact that the owner may provide object information on more than one object in a single telephone call, letter, email, etc., to the agent. The remaining requirements of paying required premiums on a quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis and keeping records of the insurance obtained for each of the objects is the same.
The present invention therefore seeks to improve the method used to obtain quotes, obtain coverage and pay for insurance for one or more of a plurality of objects with object information contained in a common database and assigning the costs to a particular object for one or a plurality of owners.